In the case of lighting design, technology moves on quickly and old fixtures quickly become outdated. But with so many wonderful designs created over the last 100 years, it’s often difficult to see why these lamps need to be replaced with completely new concepts. That’s why we are pleased to see that many recent lighting launches have included the reworking of design classics; where the basic design principals remain the same but the technology is tweaked to fall in line with 21st century requirements.

Italian lighting brand Flos have painstakingly redeveloped five elegant lighting designs by legendary Italian designer Gino Sarfatti. All designed between 1951 and 1971, the lamps were originally created by Sarfatti for Arteluce - the company he founded in 1939 and sold to Flos in 1973.Updated with modern LED technology, the designs have been brought back to life as part of a collection called Edition No. 1 by Italian brand Flos that was introduced earlier this year.

It's difficult to believe that the sleek, ultramodern-looking Potence Pivotante lamp by acclaimed Parisian designer and architect Charlotte Perriand was designed over sixty years ago in 1938. Realizing its timeless appeal the design has been reissued by Italian lighting brand Nemo. A long arm made in plain, matte black metal stretches upwards, parallel to the wall, then bends at a right angle and runs along the ceiling, culminating in a large luminous bulb made in frosted white glass. The lamp is hinged hinged at the base to optimize its efficiency and so that it may be re-positioned with ease – a flexible solution that Perriand designed with her own small Parisian apartment in mind.

Barba Corsini (1916 – 2008) designed the original Pedrera series of lamps in 1955 for the renovation of the loft space of Antoni Gaudi's iconic La Pedrera building in Barcelona. Over thirty years later, during the renovation of La Pedrera in 1991, Joaquim Ruiz Millet (1955- ) rediscovered the Pedrera floor lamp (PD2) and rescued it from being thrown in the trash. He contacted Barba Corsini and together they relaunched the original designs from 1955. In 2011, Danish manufacturer Gubi added two new versions to the original collection including a slim, elongated pendant called ANA and a smaller table lamp called ABC.

Designed by the German-born Englishman Bernard Schottlander in 1951, the Mantis lights were put back into production this year by DCW Éditions. A great admirer of the work of Alexander Calder, Schottlander devised a clever system of counterweights combined with a series of strong and flexible metal bars attached to aluminium shades to create a highly functional series of task lamps.

Inspired by the iconic Norm 69 lamp which he created for Normann Copenhagen back in 2002, Simon Karkov has created Norm 12, a softer, more organic version of his original design.